Transcript Don`t Make Me Think!

Don’t Make Me Think!
A Common Sense Approach to
Web Usability
By Steve Krug, 2000
Question:

What’s the most important thing I should do if
I want to make sure my Web site is easy to
use?
Answer:
Don’t make me think!
Things that make us think:
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Names of things
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Cute or clever names
Marketing-induced
names
Company-specific names
Unfamiliar technical
names
Things that make us think:

Links and Buttons not
obviously clickable
Things that make us think:

Thinking about how I
want to search
Things that make us think:
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
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Where am I?
Where should I begin?
Where did they put _____ ?
What are the most important things on this
page?
Why did they call it that?
However, . . .

You can’t make everything self-evident

You can make it self-explanatory
How we Really use the Web
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Scanning
Satisficing
Muddling Through
Fact of Life #1:
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We don’t read pages.
We scan them.
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We’re usually in a hurry
We know we don’t need
to read everything
We’re good at it.
Fact of Life #2:
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We don’t make optimal choices. We
satisfice.
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We’re usually in a hurry
There’s not much penalty for guessing wrong
Weighing options may not improve our chances
Guessing is more fun
Fact of Life #3:

We don’t figure out how things work. We muddle
through.

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It’s not important to us
If we find something that works, we stick with it.
If users “get it”. . .

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There’s a better chance they’ll find what
they’re looking for
There’s a better chance they’ll understand
the full range of what your site has to offer
You’ll have a better chance of steering them
to parts of the site you want them to see
They’ll feel smarter and more in control,
which will bring them back
So what do we do?
If your audience is going to act like you’re
designing billboards,
Then design great billboards.